Primary small intestinal lymphoma: a study of 39 cases

Thirty-nine cases of primary small intestinal lymphoma were studied by morphological and immunohistochemical methods. The adjacent uninvolved mucosa was also examined for features suggestive of coeliac disease. Employing the immunogold silver staining (IGSS) technique and polyclonal primary antisera against alpha-l-antitrypsin, lysozyme and kappa and lambda light chains, 29 cases (74.5 per cent) were found to be B-cell lymphomas, seven (18 per cent) histiocytic tumours, one (2.5 per cent) Hodgkin's disease and two (5 per cent) remained unclassified. No specific lymphoma subtype was found to be associated with cases having the histological features of coeliac disease in the uninvolved adjacent mucosa. In 35 cases sufficient clinical information was available to assess the significance of histological type and stage in relation to survival. Although the histological type did not correlate with survival, stage did and tumours extending beyond the local lymph nodes were associated with a significantly worse prognosis.